Unitary membership card

ABSTRACT

Multiple membership accounts can be managed using a single, unitary membership card.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to devices, methods and systems formanaging multiple membership accounts a single, unitary membership card.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Membership cards, such as health club cards, video rental cards, librarycards, promotional cards, discount cards, and loyalty cards (e.g.,frequent flyer cards, grocery discount cards, and the like) are widelyused. The proliferation of such membership cards has escalated to thepoint where over 60% of the population in Europe possesses two or moreloyalty cards, and nearly 80% of all grocery transactions in the U.S.take place with a membership card.

Membership cards may include a variety of different indicia to identifythe card, the individual using the card, a membership account, anexpiration date, and other information. The indicia may include a stringof alphanumeric characters, a barcode, or an encoded magnetic stripattached to the card. In the case where barcodes are used as theindicia, an organization typically creates a membership card thatincludes only one such barcode.

Vendors that wish to track member activity typically want to ensure thateach user of an account receive a membership card that is appropriatelyassociated with the membership account. Unfortunately, these cards havetaken over the space in people's wallets and purses.

Vendors have also issued smaller versions of their loyalty cards thatare designed to be attached to a keychain. These devices contain onlythe basic indicia representing the membership identifier, such as asingle barcode containing the owner's membership number. This hasresulted in cumbersome key chains that burden the consumer just as muchas the cards. The typical consumer now carries several cards in hiswallet and a plethora of key chain tokens. Furthermore, while consumersare being bombarded with new card offers daily, they still have to carrycredit cards, driver's licenses, and often choose to carry pictures oftheir loved ones as well.

In an attempt to reduce the number of such cards carried by anindividual, bar code numbers have been provided to a card provider thatprints several bar codes on one card. See, e.g., U.S. Patent ApplicationPublication No. US 2007.0007348; www.one-der-card.com;www.justoneclubcard.com. These devices, however, are limited by thenumber of different membership accounts that can be incorporated withoutthe card becoming too large.

There remains, therefore, a need for a single, unitary membership cardthat can replace a plurality of preexisting membership accounts.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide devices,methods and systems by which all of the information required to interactwith pre-existing membership accounts may be unified into one easy tocarry accessory. It is further an object of this invention to provide asingle device that may replace several memberships cards and/or keytags, and may be designed to operate with magnetic stripe readers and/orbarcode readers from several different organizations that do not have apartnership or pre-existing relationship.

It is also an object of this invention to provide devices, method andsystems by which card users may avoid having to carry multiplemembership cards and/or key tags by consolidating the relevantinformation in a single account, which is accessed using a singledevice.

In accordance with these and other objects, a first embodiment of thepresent invention is directed to unitary membership card comprising: (i)a substrate; and (ii) means for storing an identifier corresponding to aplurality of membership data items. According to this embodiment, eachof the plurality of membership data items corresponds to an independentmembership account associated with a user. That is, the singleidentifier stored on the unitary membership card, such as a telephonenumber, is used to represent a plurality of different membershipaccounts, each of which has a particular membership number associatedwith it.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description andthe following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory onlyand are intended to provide further explanation of the invention asclaimed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

A first preferred embodiment of the present invention is directed tounitary membership card comprising: (i) a substrate; and (ii) means forstoring an identifier corresponding to a plurality of membership dataitems. According to this embodiment, each of the plurality of membershipdata items corresponds to an independent membership account associatedwith a user. That is, a single identifier stored on the unitarymembership card, such as a telephone number, is used to represent aplurality of different membership accounts, each of which has aparticular membership number associated with it.

The substrate may be in any suitable form or shape for a membershipcard, and the present invention is not limited to any particular form orshape. Thus, according to certain particularly preferred embodiments,the substrate may take the shape of a rectangular card or square card.According to other preferred embodiments, the substrate may take theshape of a key tag (e.g. for use with a key chain).

The inventive unitary membership card includes means for storing anidentifier corresponding to a plurality of membership data items.Preferred means for storing include, but are not limited to, thefollowing: bar codes; magnetic strips; smart chips; RFIDs; andcombinations of two or more thereof.

According to certain particularly preferred embodiments of the presentinvention, the identifier corresponding to a plurality of membershipdata items is a unique alphanumeric string. More preferably, the uniquealphanumeric string corresponds to a telephone number uniquelyassociated with the user. According to such embodiments of the presentinvention, the use of a telephone number as the identifier omits theneed for a central database of membership accounts. This is because mostmerchants, or other card accepters, generally associate membershipnumbers with a user's telephone number(s) in their own databases (andcan therefore access the appropriate membership information by enteringthe identifier stored on the unitary membership card). Such embodimentsof the present invention are particularly useful in applications wherethe means for storing the identifier is a magnetic strip or barcode.

In addition to the membership data items, the unitary membership cardmay also contain personal identification information relating to theuser, such as the following: one or more telephone numbers; one or moremailing addresses; one or more residential and/or work addresses; one ormore email addresses; a social security number; and the like.

According to certain preferred embodiment of the present invention, theuser of multiple membership cards forwards at least one membership dataitem, such as a membership number, to a unitary membership cardprovider. This forwarding may be accomplished by any of a number ofsuitable methods, including forwarding individual membership cardsdirectly to the unitary membership card provider or entering membershipnumbers using an internet website. The unitary membership card providerpreferably incorporates the membership data item(s) into a database andgenerates a unique identifier corresponding to the user, such as theuser's telephone number. The unitary membership card provider alsogenerates a unitary membership card of the present invention andforwards it to the user. Upon receiving the unitary membership card, theuser may present it at an independent entity's establishment for readingof the unique identifier and subsequent accessing of the associatedmembership data item(s).

As a user acquires new membership accounts, the user forwards at leastone membership data item associated with each such account to theunitary membership card provider for inclusion in the databasemaintained by the unitary membership card provider.

The user may also forward one or more user preferences associated withone or more membership accounts (e.g. seat and meal preferences for afrequent flyer account, options/selection associated with areward/loyalty program, etc.) and/or one or more user preferencesassociated with the unitary membership account.

The foregoing description and the following examples are illustrativeonly and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention as definedby the appended claims. It will be apparent to those skilled in the artthat various modifications and variations can be made in the methods ofthe present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of theinvention. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover themodifications and variations of this invention provided they come withinthe scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

1. A unitary membership card comprising: (i) a substrate; and (ii) meansfor storing an identifier corresponding to a plurality of membershipdata items, each of said plurality of membership data itemscorresponding to an independent membership account associated with auser.
 2. The unitary membership card according to claim 1, wherein saidmeans for storing a plurality of membership data items is a magneticstrip.
 3. The unitary membership card according to claim 1, wherein saidmeans for storing a plurality of membership data items is a bar code. 4.The unitary membership card according to claim 1, wherein saididentifier is a unique string of alphanumeric characters.
 5. The unitarymembership card according to claim 1, wherein said unique string ofalphanumeric characters is a telephone number associated with said user.6. The unitary membership card according to claim 1, wherein saidsubstrate is a card.
 7. The unitary membership card according to claim1, wherein said substrate is a key tag.
 8. The unitary membership cardaccording to claim 1, wherein said means for storing further includes aplurality of user data items.